By Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist ——Bio and Archives--September 12, 2012
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“The armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel]... We won’t relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine.”Hamas, Haniyeh vowed, will “lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine - all of Palestine, Allah willing. Allah Akbar and praise Allah.” When Haniyeh visited Cairo in February of this year he told a wildly cheering crowd from the pulpit of the Al-Azhar Mosque that "We will never ever ever recognize Israel!" During his March 2012 visit to Tehran and standing alongside Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Haniyeh repeated this rejectionist rant before an audience of 30,000 Iranians that "Hamas will never recognize Israel.” Another member of the joint Egyptian-Hamas "security" committee will be Ahmad Ja’abari, commander of Hamas's military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. He declared "the Brigades’ commitment in liberating Palestine from the sea to the river" and that "its capital will be Jerusalem." You get the picture. But don't expect the Muslim Brotherhood-led Egyptian government to exert any sort of moderating influence on Hamas. To the contrary, it is adding fuel to the fire. As the saying goes, the apple does not fall far from the tree. Egyptian President Morsi said during his election campaign: “The Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path and death in the name of Allah is our goal (also translated as "highest hope").” Also during the campaign, a radical cleric, Safwat Higazi, joined Morsi at his events and called for a Muslim caliphate with Jerusalem as its capital. "We can see how the dream of the Islamic caliphate is being realized, God willing, by Dr. Mohamed Morsi,” the cleric told thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters at a Cairo soccer stadium during one such event, as Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood officials nodded in agreement:
“The capital of the caliphate – the capital of the United States of the Arabs – will be Jerusalem, God willing. Our capital shall not be in Cairo, Mecca or Medina. Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem.”Returning to the stage, Marsi concurred: “Yes, Jerusalem is our goal. We shall pray in Jerusalem, or die as martyrs on its threshold.” Raymond Stock, an American translator and academic who spent two decades in Egypt, explained the implications to the Jerusalem Post:
“This is what the Muslim Brotherhood really stands for: the extermination of Israel – and Jews everywhere – as well as the spread and control of radical Islam over the world. How anyone can fail to see this boggles the mind – yet its denial is virtual dogma in the global mainstream media, US government and Western academia today.”After the election, Morsi declared his intention to re-open the three decade old Camp David Accord with Israel. The media adviser for Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party, the political movement of the Muslim Brotherhood that picked Morsi to run for president, called the treaty a “mark of shame” that brought “cancer, hepatitis, and kidney infections” to Egypt. Morsi has also supported further expansion of ties with Israel's existential enemy Iran. Morsi said that stronger relations between Iran and Cairo, will create "a strategic balance in the region." Morsi followed up with a visit to Tehran. He was the first Egyptian president to visit Tehran since Iran cut diplomatic ties over Cairo's 1979 peace treaty with Israel. The occasion was the Non-Aligned Summit. As usual, he bashed Israel. But Morsi evidently pleased the Obama administration with his rebuke in front of his Iranian hosts that Iran's ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, had forfeited his legitimacy. The Obama administration is placing its hopes on this slender reed of convergence of interest between the United States and Egypt against Assad and accepts at face value Morsi's promise of inclusiveness and democracy, even as Morsi consolidates his power over the executive and legislative branches and the media, begins to impose sharia law and revamps the military leadership with Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers. As a result, the Obama administration is doubling down in its bets on Morsi. It plans to relieve Egypt of $1 billion of its debt and to go ahead with military aid in the range of $1.3 billion annually. While snubbing Israel's prime minister, Obama will be shaking hands and conversing at the United Nations with a man who is welcoming the Hamas terrorist group - the offspring of Morsi's own Muslim Brotherhood - to open an office in Cairo, and who is replacing a military dictatorship with an Islamic dictatorship, much as Hamas has converted its own electoral victory in Gaza into one party dictatorial rule.
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Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.